


Two-Faced

by CarnationGem (Akumeoi)



Series: Ciavran AUs [4]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: (the referenced non-con is not between ciara and zevran!), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bets & Wagers, City Elf Origin, Co-workers, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Misogyny, Workplace Relationship, he gets over it tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-09 11:42:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11103870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akumeoi/pseuds/CarnationGem
Summary: Zevran, Warden Tabris, and most of the rest of the DAO cast work at a local newspaper agency. Tabris is a total bitch - and also, Zevran's boss. Taliesen bets Zevran that he can't get the uptight warden into his bed. But approaching her turns out to be surprisingly easy, leading Zevran to wonder if there's another woman under that cold exterior - and why she's been hiding from them. It's no simple secret that Tabris is keeping.





	1. The Bet

“So, what’d you do this weekend?” Taliesen said, kicking his rolling chair backwards and gliding into Zevran’s cubicle. 

“Had great sex with a stranger. The usual. You?” Zevran asked, spinning around to face his friend. Though he felt wildly out of place in this little grey wasteland they called an office building, he had to admit that the chairs, at least, were amusing. They were second only to the letter openers, which he liked to imagine killing coworkers with on the odd occasion. But not Taliesen. Usually.

“Went home to my mother’s and helped her pull up half the flower bed. Boring shit. I wish she’d just hire some sap to do it for her,” Taliesen complained. 

Zevran let out a snort of laughter. “Good luck with that, my friend. Maybe next weekend you can come with me instead. There were plenty more attractive people where that last came from. Whoever he was.”

“Zevran, you know I have a girlfriend,” Taliesen said, exasperated. 

“Oh, right. Rinna can come too, don’t worry. Maybe she would like you to have a nice threesome.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Taliesen began. Suddenly, they heard footsteps, and both of them immediately spun back around to face their respective work stations. Just as Taliesen slid back into his cubicle and picked up his pencil, a smartly dressed, black-haired woman walked between their two cubicles. Pausing, she looked each of them over, then shook her head, turned crisply, and disappeared back the way she had come. Both Zevran and Taliesen waited a moment before tentatively making eye contact.

Letting out a sigh he didn’t realise he had been holding in, Zevran slid his chair into Taliesen’s cubicle and shook his head in disgust. The letter opener tempted.

“Every time she does that, I feel like I’m back in high school,” Taliesen complained, his voice more hushed than before. 

“I have never in my life seen someone needs to get laid as badly as that woman does,” Zevran agreed, and Taliesen stifled a laugh. 

“She’s so creepy, though. Who’d want to do that? I mostly just want to stuff her in a dumpster somewhere.”

“Then we’d only have to write about it in the next edition,” Zevran said. “And I wouldn’t want to be the one who has to write the obituary.”

“You think she has any friends?” Taliesen said doubtfully.

“Who cares?”

“Well, I’m concerned that so few people like her we’ll be forced to go to the funeral just to fill up the seats.”

As both of them were chuckling quietly over this little gem, the sound of footsteps returned. This time, Zevran was too slow in sliding back to where he had come from. The wheels on his chair locked in an abrupt halt as his boss actually reached out and grabbed the back of it. Zevran found himself looking up into a pair of black eyes as solid as tarmac. 

She waited just long enough for him to begin to feel uncomfortable before she spoke. “That article on the fire isn’t going to write itself,” she said evenly. Internally, Zevran rolled his eyes and restrained himself from making a comeback. 

“I am well aware of that, Miss Tabris,” he said, as over her shoulder Taliesen rolled his eyes far enough back for the both of them. 

“Are you aware of the deadline?” she asked. 

_You will not catch me out for that one either_ , Zevran though maliciously. 

“In fact, I was not. I was just conferencing with Mr. Taliesen here about it. Between the two of us, we were able to determine the correct deadline for this article. It was a most successful conference.”

“Is that so?” the boss asked, turning to Taliesen, who quickly sat upright and started straightening his pens. 

“Oh, absolutely,” Taliesen said. As usual, his acting was spot on. Zevran thought that Taliesen, too, was in the wrong profession. He would make a killing on Broadway. Or in a strip club. 

“We also discussed the hook for the, uh, Dulton follow-up article,” Taliesen added, as Tabris still looked unconvinced. 

“Uh-huh. I’m glad to hear that,” she said. “Well, perhaps next time you two gentlemen would prefer to book a private room for your conferences, in order to avoid inconveniencing your colleagues. Please keep that in mind.”

With that, she let go of Zevran’s chair and walked off again. Zevran was about to finally go back to his cubicle and get to work for real this time, when Taliesen beckoned to him. 

“What?” Zevran hissed, scooting close enough to hear whatever it was Taliesen had to say without actually leaving the aisle. 

“Listen, Zevran. I’ve got a bet for you.”

“What?”

“Just now, I thought about what you said. Ten bucks says you can’t get Tabs to sleep with you,” Taliesen said, grinning.

“What? Are you crazy?” Zevran shot back. “I said that she needed to get laid, not that I’m lining up for it.”

“Oh, come on,” Taliesen said. “Are you saying you’re chicken?"

Zevran thought this was unfair, coming from someone who wouldn’t even consider trying a threesome with him. 

“No, I’m saying I have better things to do. Better people,” he corrected. 

“Okay, fifty bucks,” Taliesen said, wiggling his eyebrows. 

“What are you, her pimp?” Zevran said, and glanced furtively over his shoulder to make sure that Tabris was still in her office.

“What do you care? I just think it’ll be hilarious.”

Tabris’s office door opened. _Shit._

“Okay, fine,” Zevran said quickly, giving up his token protests, then slid backwards into his cubicle just in time. But this time she wasn’t coming to chastise him and Taliesen, but the poor sap in the next aisle. Listening to her glacial voice and the pathetic replies of the girl she was chewing out, Zevran shook his head and wondered what had possessed him to take Taliesen’s bet. It was then that he realised he didn’t even know Tabris’s first name. 

—————

The sign outside her door said “C. Tabris,” but that lone letter didn’t magically bring to mind the rest of the name. Catherine, maybe? Zevran wondered. The idea of having to call her something cute and friendly like “Cathy” or “Cate” made him cringe. True, he and Taliesen had nicknamed her “Tabs”, but that nickname was condescending rather than affectionate. It was also something he would have to remember not to accidentally say during sex, if it ever got that far. 

Of course it would get that far. Zevran was the master of getting absolutely anyone to sleep with him, and he was completely confident in his abilities. Though he expected C. Tabris would be rather tiresome to lure into bed. He might even have to buy her dinner. Maybe he should tell Taliesen to up the bet to include extraneous expenses. Maybe he should buy himself a new suit and coerce Taliesen into footing the bill for that too. 

But now wasn’t the time to cook up such schemes. Later. Instead, Zevran knocked on the door to Tabris’s office and waited. 

“Come in,” she called, so he did just that. Inside, her office was sparsely furnished, with next to no personal touches. On her desk were two solitary framed pictures: an old, grainy photo of a young couple Zevran presumed to be her parents, and, amazingly enough, a picture of Tabris surrounded by what looked like three friends - two women, one man. One of the two women, a red-head with many small braids, looked strangely familiar, but Zevran couldn’t place her. Apart from these two photos, the only other sign that a woman used this space, as opposed to a robot, was a coffee mug with a mabari on it. Tabris, with her poker-straight spine and neat, short-cut hair, fit right into the picture. Sadly, there was nothing there that might help Zevran guess what the C stood for. 

“Ah, Zevran. Good afternoon. I hope you haven’t forgotten the deadline for the factory fire article again,” she said. 

“Of course not,” Zevran said, with dignity. “I am well aware that it is due the 16th of this month, thank you very much.”

Tabris laughed, somewhat nastily, Zevran though. 

“It’s due the twelfth,” she said, shaking her head in amusement. 

“Is it? Well, it is a good thing that I am almost done with it, then,” Zevran said, which was a complete lie. But apparently, he was convincing, because Tabris nodded. 

“Good. There’s a big backlog of articles about the town’s centennial which need to be written,” she said. Zevran already knew this; he had been purposefully getting as close to deadlines as he could with other articles to avoid having to write about such a boring topic.

“I look forward to them,” he said, straight-faced.

“Good,” Tabris said. There was an awkward pause, in which Zevran realised that he may or may not have forgotten to concoct a good excuse for this visit in advance. Well, might as well just dive in, then. 

Just as Tabris looked about ready to scold him for wasting her time or kick him out of her office, he said, “Ah, excuse me. I do not mean to be distracted. I just realised how nice you look today.”

Tabris tilted her chin up and fired a stare at him over the end of her nose. It was a customary expression of hers. “I wear nearly the same thing every day,” she said. The chill in her voice could have preserved raw fish for several months outside in the dead of summer.

“Is that so?” Zevran said, completely undaunted. “To be completely honest with you, I didn’t notice that at all. But just now, I realised that you have excellent taste. It is all well to wear the same thing several times if it suits you, is it not?”

The look Tabris gave him in response to that indicated that she had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Good. Confused was the opening he needed to continue this conversation. 

“You’re flirting with me,” she said, and Zevran almost laughed at how matter-of-fact she sounded. Perhaps her tactic of stating the obvious worked to reprimand him and all the other workers, but it wouldn’t deter him in this.

“Yes, I am. Is it wrong to flirt with someone you find attractive?”

“Since when do you find me attractive?” 

‘ _Since never,_ ’ was the right answer to that question, but Zevran instead replied with several barefaced lies. “Since just now, I suppose. Did you know that you have lovely eyes?”

“Zevran!” she said, but her voice sounded shocked rather than angry, and maybe a touch more pleased than she would have liked to admit. 

‘I’m flirting with Tabris,’ Zevran though. It was almost unreal. How had he let Taliesen talk him into this, again? Oh, right. Because he was a sucker for a good bet. And for a challenge. Though this was turning out much easier than he had expected it to be. 

With her next sentence, she killed that thought. “Zevran, I’m flattered, but this is completely inappropriate. And out of nowhere. Please, go back to work.”

Zevran almost argued with her, but then he realised that might require an excuse to be in her office, which he still didn’t have. Ah, well. Now that this conversation had been established, he didn’t need words to flirt with her. She would crack in time. Unless that man with her in the photograph was her boyfriend. Nah, couldn’t be. The guy looked far too normal to be able to handle this much bitchery.

“As you wish,” Zevran said smoothly, nodding at her. As he saw himself out, he could have sworn she was blushing. 

————

For about two weeks, Zevran made sure to hold eye contact with Tabris whenever their gazes met. Not in a completely obvious way, in a way that was obvious but designed to pretend it was being subtle. Perhaps an experienced person would have seen right through him, so by that measure Tabris was completely inexperienced. This was fine by Zevran. As far as he was concerned, things were going perfectly; Tabris was clearly not immune to his advances. She no longer reprimanded him for not working, though she still stopped by every so often to chew out Taliesen and shoot Zevran a token glare in return. The only annoying part of the whole situation was Taliesen’s constant questioning of Zevran’s abilities, but then again, Taliesen had never seen him in action before. 

It was much to Zevran’s surprise when Ciara stopped by his cubicle on Thursday at the end of the second week. 

“Zevran?” she said, and he looked up from a hastily hidden game of Minesweeper to turn around and speak with her. 

“Yes, Miss Tabris?”

“Would you care to speak with me in my office after we’re done for the day?” she asked. 

_Already?_ he thought. He had expected to have to work on her for at least a month. 

“Certainly,” he said, holding her gaze for a few seconds longer than necessary. Startled, Tabris blinked and stepped back. 

“Ahem. Alright then,” she said, a little too loudly. The blip in her voice only lasted a second; she quickly regained her composure and spoke again. “I’ll see you in a bit,” she said, then quickly walked away before he could say anything else. Zevran watched her go, mourning the fact that her ass didn’t seem to be particularly shapely. 

With a little whispered hiss, Taliesen interrupted his discontented thoughts. 

“Hey, Zevran?”

Surreptitiously sliding into Taliesen’s cubicle, Zevran whispered back, “Hmm?”

“What was that about?”

“I suspect she may be about to ask me out,” Zevran said, allowing himself a victorious little grin. 

“Really? That was fast,” Taliesen said. 

“And you doubted me.”

“Well,” Taliesen said, grinning suggestively, “Are you gonna take her up on it?”

“Are you joking? After all this effort?” Zevran shot back, knowing Taliesen expected him to give up now. “Of course not. By the way, do you know what her name is?”

“You don’t know her name?” Taliesen said incredulously, laughing. “It’s... Cathy? Cara? No... Ciara. She signs all her emails with it.”

“As if I read them,” Zevran said. “But thank you, I suppose.”

“Anything else you need to know about her before you sleep with her?” Taliesen said teasingly. 

“I probably didn’t even need to know that,” Zevran said. “I’ll let you know how it goes, don’t worry.”

With that, he rolled back to where he had come from, and resumed work until the end of the day.

————

At the conclusion of the day, Zevran packed up his belongings, turned off the computer, and sadly replaced the letter opener in the drawer. Giving Taliesen a parting nod, to which Taliesen replied with a big, inappropriate wink, Zevran made his way to Tabris’s - Ciara’s - office. He didn’t have to knock on the door; apparently, she was waiting for him, and it was already slightly ajar. Upon entering he found her standing up, so he dropped his bag onto one of her chairs and closed the door. 

Ciara was looking out the window, but at the sound of the door handle clicking shut, she turned to face him, as stone-faced as ever.

“Good afternoon, Ciara,” he said smoothly, as if he hadn’t just learnt her name an hour or so before. 

“Don’t call me that,” she said, folding her arms. 

“Oh? My mistake. Excuse me,” Zevran said, holding up both hands for a moment in a gesture of apology. 

“That’s not your only mistake,” Ciara said, her voice steely. “You need to stop with whatever that... eye-contact thing is. You know what I’m talking about.”

“I’m afraid I have no idea,” Zevran said, and she scowled. 

“We both know what’s going on here,” she hissed, losing her composure slightly. “Whatever you want from me, forget about it. This is a serious workplace, and you need to respect that.”

Zevran was momentarily halted in his tracks. He had expected her to submit to his advances, not give him... whatever this speech was. But he wasn’t about to give up, not yet. For a moment, he pondered her words - and realised that there was absolutely nothing to be worried about. She was clearly not immune to him, or she wouldn’t be trying to put a stop to them. And there was the matter of “this is a serious workplace”...

“Ah, I see. I apologise for... disturbing the working environment,” Zevran said, once again lying through his teeth. “But I wonder... if we were to meet in a workplace that were not so serious... or in a place which was not a workplace at all...”

Ciara actually had the grace to look flustered, but she didn’t reply right away. When she finally spoke, her voice was low and almost husky.

“Zevran... we shouldn’t.”

Zevran was surprised, but not displeased. Apparently he had just pressed exactly the right button, whatever that was. 

“We shouldn’t, but don’t you want to?” he asked, moving closer to her. She took a step back.

“I said, not here,” she said, a little frantically. Zevran held up his hands again to calm her down. “I...” she hesitated. It was quite fascinating to see her act like this, Zevran thought off-handedly. He wondered (not for the first time) what she was like in the bedroom. Hopefully her sensual self more resembled this flustered, slightly off-balance Ciara than the strict, uptight bitch he had come to know and hate in the six months he had been working in this office. 

Ciara spoke again. “Alright,” she said in a low voice. “You can come to my place tomorrow night. But you had better make it worth my while.”

 _Worth your while? Like you deserve that,_ Zevran thought. Though he was looking forward to the sex, as a sort of reward for having to put up with her bullshit for all this time, he was definitely not doing it for her, and it was tiresome to pretend he was. Nevertheless, his reply was nothing less than sultry.

“Oh, absolutely,” he said, letting his eyes flick up and down her body in a sensual way, not that there was much to look at with her in that formless grey suit. 

Ciara hesitated again, then pulled a piece of paper from her desk and scribbled something down on it, then pressed it into Zevran’s hand.

“My address,” she said. “I don’t want us to be seen leaving together, so you’ll have to get there yourself, I’m afraid.”

“8:00?” Zevran asked. 

“Yes. You can spend the night, if you feel like it,” Ciara said, which was nicer of her than Zevran had expected, but there was no way in hell he would actually take her up on that offer. 

“Thank you,” he said. Lowering his voice and looking deep into her eyes, he murmured, “I’ll see you then.” 

For a moment, he held her gaze, and her fathomless black eyes seemed almost to connect with his - just for a moment. Then her eyes flicked up and down his body, and for a fleeting second, he felt - almost as if - no. She couldn’t possibly know more than she was letting on. 

But somehow his sense of victory dimmed as he walked from her office and out to his car.

————

The next day, Zevran reported to Taliesen what had occurred, and was rewarded with an awed whistle that was perhaps a little too loud. Ciara didn’t even bother coming out of her office to reprimand them, though Zevran was sure she had heard that - everyone else had. After quietly reprimanding Taliesen, Zevran set about his work with a light heart, and actually managed to get an article done in record time. At the end of the day he went home, ate dinner, showered, and sort of... relaxed a little. It was quite nice, he decided, to know where his Friday night lay was coming from for once. Even if it was Ciara, he still had to admit it was all quite nicely arranged. 

He left his apartment around 7:30 and made it to the address Ciara had given him right on time. It turned out to be another apartment complex, slightly nicer than his own. Judging from the layout of the building, he gathered that she had a single-person apartment on the seventh floor. 

When he rang the doorbell, she answered immediately. Before he had a chance to register anything, she had pulled him inside and shut the door behind him. 

It was nothing like what he had expected.

First, the apartment was nothing like the bare, soulless office he always mentally placed her in. Photographs and artwork lined the walls, while the full-to-bursting bookshelves were topped with what appeared to be a display case containing 2 ornate knives. The room was trimmed in various cheerfully coloured pastels, without a speck of grey anywhere.  
And then there was Ciara herself.

Instead of one of those ridiculous suits she always wore, she had on a loose, sky-blue dress, gathered at the waist, with shoulders bared. Zevran noticed the pale curve of her breasts peeking from the low neckline and realised with a pleased jolt that she was actually quite slim and... maybe even attractive? 

He couldn’t tell if she was wearing makeup or not, as the lights were slightly dimmed, but with or without it her face was so much more open, relaxed, and coolly confidant than it was in their everyday encounters. He was caught off guard as she fluttered her long, dark eyelashes at him and said, “Well?”

“I - you look...” he started, and she laughed in a genuine, delighted, giddy sort of way. For a moment, Zevran felt as if he had been transported into another dimension. How could the boring, uptight, unattractive woman he had to deal with every day have turned in the span of two days into... this?

For a moment, any sense he might have had told him to maybe reconsider this. Then all the rest of his instincts overrode that thought and he closed the distance between them. Ciara put her hand on his chest to stop him, so he leaned down slightly so he could look her in the eyes. 

“I like what I see,” he said in a low voice, and she laughed again.

“You’d better,” she said, lacing her fingers together behind his neck. “I don’t do this for just anybody. You’re the sexiest man I’ve ever had the misfortune to be stuck in an office with.”

 _So whose apartment is this really, and who exactly is this woman?_ Zevran wondered. 

“Oh, I know,” Zevran said, putting his hands on her waist.

“Are you waiting for something?” she chided playfully, as he didn’t move to kiss her. 

“I... you seem so different,” he said, and she smiled, then echoed his earlier words.

“Oh, I know,” she said, and confidently kissed him. 

Her lips were soft and warm and playful, and perfect, really, if Zevran was being honest. He almost started wondering again at the complete change in personality she seemed to have undergone, then stopped himself. This was incredible, and he was going to enjoy it as much as he possibly could. Maybe he didn’t really know this woman at all... but didn’t that make it all the more... sensual?

“What else about you is different, I wonder,” Zevran said in a low voice.

“You’ll find out, won’t you.” So saying, she pushed him up against the wall, eyes daring him to fight back.

“That’s my job,” he said, and turned both of them around so she could take his place there.

“So earn it,” she replied, and he claimed her mouth in a deep kiss. In just a short while she was sighing against his lips as her fingers danced up and down his spine, made their way under his shirt, and caressed the soft skin of his stomach, sides, and chest. Zevran, too, found himself panting and moaning as she kissed him voraciously, unafraid to use lips, teeth, and tongue to their full effect. Through this intoxicating haze of sensation he felt his hips grind into hers, and she gasped and clutched his shoulders. 

“The bedroom,” she said urgently. “Over there.”

So Zevran half-carried her to her own bed. 

—————

When Zevran woke up the next morning the first thing he saw was Ciara, who was lying on her side next to him almost touching him, but not quite. She was curled up into a cosy ball, hands tucked under her chin, breathing quietly and angelically, totally relaxed. Well.

Last night had been almost ridiculously fun. Although Ciara had turned out to be less experienced than she had first seemed - several times she asked him to stop or slow down, and a few times fumbled in the dark with clumsy touches or the removal of various pieces of clothing - but what she lacked in speed she more than made up for in spirit. It had been... actually, totally worth it.

And now, here he was, waking up beside her as if it were somehow normal. 

These were the hazy morning thoughts flitting through his head when Ciara finally stirred. Blinking sleepily, she yawned and uncurled, stretching her legs down the length of the bed and resettling into a comfortable-looking position lying on her side. 

“Morning,” she said. 

“Mm. Good morning,” Zevran replied, almost taken aback. 

“You sleep well?”

“Yes?”

“Good.”

Ciara sat up, stretched again, and glanced at the clock on the nightstand. 

“Good thing it’s a Saturday,” she said wryly. Zevran, too, glanced over, and saw that it was already 10:00 in the morning. _Good grief._

Slowly getting out of bed, Ciara picked up all her discarded clothing from the floor, left the room, and came back with empty arms. Zevran surmised she had put it all into the laundry somewhere.

“I’m going to have a shower. Want me to wash your stuff?” she asked, standing in the doorway. Zevran half wished he could invite himself into that shower, but he restrained himself from asking. 

“Yes please,” he said. After picking up all the remaining clothing, Ciara disappeared for about 20 minutes. During that time, Zevran looked around the room a little more. He was comfortable lying in her bed, and didn’t particularly want to get up and inspect the apartment, but he could see a good deal of interesting things from where he was sitting already. First, the pictures on the walls - pictures which contained basically the four same people as the one on her desk - a rather plain, brown-haired man who looked as if he might be Ciara’s brother or something, along with a blonde-haired woman and that familiar-looking redhead with the braids. From these photos it was clear that the redhead and the blonde woman were a couple, but Zevran couldn’t determine their relationship to Ciara - probably just friends. 

There were also photos of a man who Zevran guessed was Ciara’s father, but no pictures of anyone who could be her mother except for a replica of the old photo in Ciara’s office. At the head of the bed, behind him, was a hand-drawn picture of some brightly-coloured flowers, done in a stylised but aesthetically pleasing scrawl. There was a signature in the bottom right corner, which Zevran had to crane his neck to see - “Shianni”. For some reason, Zevran had a feeling that was the braided redhead. 

The other ornaments in the bedroom were either too far away to inspect properly, or not of much interest. Like the living room, the bedroom contained a good deal of books, as well as a slim laptop sitting on a desk facing the room’s one large window. It was pretty clean and tidy, but still looked cosy. Perhaps it was the blue dress from last night, now discarded on the floor, which gave him that impression. 

Well. Contrary to his previous assumptions, Ciara definitely had friends. And it was hard to imagine someone who lived in this pleasant space living a completely dull and meaningless life. But this didn’t really explain anything. Why was she so uptight at work? Why had she chosen to break character to accept his offer to sleep with her? What kind of person was she really? Zevran could feel his reporter instincts kick in - and they were far stronger than the ones which motivated him to write boring articles about factory fires and town centennials. This was the kind of mystery that had prompted him to take this job in the first place. 

But it would be wrong to investigate Ciara's private business. Even a bitch like her - no, Zevran didn't feel it was right to think of her that way anymore. That was a really confusing thought.

Just then, Ciara reappeared in the doorway, startling him out of his thoughts. Now she was wearing a loose blouse and jeans, another attractive but never-before-seen outfit. Dumping a bundle of something onto the bed, she walked over to the desk and turned the computer on. 

“That’s a robe. You can wear it if you want, though it’s probably a bit small. Or you can just stay here until your clothing’s dry. I’m not bringing you breakfast in bed, though. If you want it, you’ll have to come to the kitchen,” she said. 

“You’re making me breakfast?” Zevran said incredulously. 

_What does she think this is? A date?_ he wondered. This was probably the most unorthodox one-night-stand he’d ever had in his life. And that was saying something. Most of his sexual adventures took place in the back rooms of clubs, in tiny, cluttered apartments, or hotel rooms. In his younger days, he’d had sex in filthy back allies and closets. The people he had slept with in those days were drunk, or high, or both. Now they tended to be slightly tipsy instead, which he had thought was an improvement, but it was nothing like this. This was so much better.

“No, I’m making _me_ breakfast. But maybe if you asked nicely, I could make extra breakfast,” Ciara explained. “You made last night well worth my while. I can at least do that much.”

If Zevran’s mind hadn’t been occupied by a giant question mark, he might have been grateful and appreciative of Ciara’s apparent kindness. As it was, he was still struggling to reconcile Ciara’s two personalities, and it just was not computing. 

“Ah... I... yes, please,” he finally managed to get out. Laughing, Ciara picked up her laptop and left the room again. 

Well. This was... interesting. And still made completely no sense. It was then that Zevran decided - if he wanted to get to the bottom of this, he would have to completely forget all his previous perceptions of Ciara, and just pretend she was a stranger. That was something he had to do for the good of his sanity, too. 

After putting on the robe and finding it to be, as Ciara had said, slightly small (but still comfortable), he used the bathroom mirror to fix his hair, then wandered through the apartment until he found the kitchen. Ciara was looking through the fridge for something or other. On the table there was already fruit, cereal, and a pitcher of water. It was all absurdly nice and weirdly domestic. Most of Zevran’s own breakfasts consisted of cold Pop-Tarts and the occasional banana. 

Having found what she was looking for in the fridge (butter, apparently) Ciara set it down on the table and turned around to face him, leaning against the counter. 

“This adequate?” she asked, gesturing at the table. “Toast is coming.”

“Yes,” Zevran said, sitting down at the table. Ciara frowned, probably due to Zevran’s apathetic, one-word answers.

“I thought you would be more talkative than this,” she said thoughtfully. “I can hardly get you and Taliesen to shut up at all.”

The mention of Taliesen sort of rattled Zevran’s plan to pretend he didn’t actually know Ciara from anywhere. Without thinking, he said, “Taliesen is my friend.”

“Ouch, ungrateful,” Ciara said, but she didn’t seem particularly offended. Turning back to the counter she retrieved two pieces of toast from the toaster and set them down on the table. She and Zevran each took one, and she gestured for him to take the butter knife first. As he did so, their hands grazed together. Ciara immediately withdrew her hand and looked away in apparent embarrassment. How she could possibly be shy after last night Zevran had no idea, but it was almost cute. 

“Sorry,” Zevran said, not knowing exactly what he was apologising for. 

“Hmm?” Ciara said, apparently wondering the same thing. 

“I - hmm.” As a stalling tactic, Zevran began buttering his toast. “About last night,” he began, then stopped again. 

“Last night? You have nothing to apologise for. It was great.”

“Yes, I enjoyed myself too.”

“Good, because I haven’t done this in a while.” 

Zevran wondered if she meant having a one night stand, or sex in general. Probably the latter. Ciara poured both of them a glass of water and Zevran quickly took a drink. 

“No, it was fun. I... was quite surprised, actually.”

“You were?”

“Well... yes. I didn’t expect you to be so... feisty, Miss Ciara.” Zevran raised his eyebrows suggestively.

Ciara laughed. “That’s high praise from you, isn’t it? Thank you.”

Seeing an opening to start getting some answers around here Zevran said, “Mm. What a difference from the boring pencil-pusher I’ve come to know at work.”

“Boring? Don’t you mean downright bitchy?” Ciara asked, grinning as she took a bite of her toast. 

“I - well - yes,” Zevran admitted, startled. “Do you _want_ people to think of you that way?”

Shrugging, Ciara chewed for a moment before saying, “I don’t know. Why do you want everyone you’ve ever met to think of you as some kind of sexual paragon?”

 _Zing_. Zevran nearly dropped the remaining amount of toast he was holding.

“You wound me,” he said, putting his free hand dramatically over his heart. “Besides, aren’t I?”

“Pfft. I wouldn’t go that far,” Ciara said, but Zevran couldn’t tell if the protest was just a token or not. She started pouring milk into her cereal bowl and Zevran took the opportunity to try and formulate another serious question.

“I am serious, though. Are you simply trying to keep from making friends?”

“No, that’s not it,” Ciara said, looking slightly uncomfortable. “Must we talk about this?”

“Sorry. I just wish you would stop bullying Taliesen.” 

_And me,_ Zevran thought.

“Oh... oh no... I’m overdoing it again, aren’t I?” Ciara said, sounding distressed. She tapped her spoon against the side of the bowl thoughtfully and sighed. “Taliesen has been a problem since he was hired, and then you showed up. It’s been a bit of a mess since then but - alright.”

Zevran waited for her to add something else to that cryptic statement, but she was silent for what felt like a full minute before she spoke again. 

“So, how’s the toast?”

Internally, Zevran groaned. Back to this awkward, stilted conversation again. This is why most people didn’t invite their one night stands to breakfast. But Zevran was a reporter. He interrogated people for a living. He could do this. 

“It’s good. May I ask you something else?” he said. 

“Ask a rude question, get a rude answer,” Ciara warned him, picking up her spoon again. Zevran nodded. 

“This is nothing of the sort. I simply wish to know if there is some kind of boyfriend around that I should be worried about coming after me for this.”

Ciara laughed. “No, of course not. Did you really think I was that kind of person? You know what, don’t answer that.”

“Are you sure there are no... I don’t know. Additional secret lovers? Overly protective older brothers?” Zevran said. Ciara did not disappoint with her next answer; she gave him exactly the information he had been looking for.

“Well, there is my best friend Shianni. But don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone about this. And,” she said sternly, peering at him over the glass she was holding, “You shouldn’t either.”

“Discretion is my middle name,” said Zevran airily, and felt only a little bad about knowing all of this was going straight to Taliesen later. “Was Shianni the person who drew all these pictures?” he asked, waving his spoon at the art on the walls. 

“Have you been looking through my stuff?” Ciara asked suspiciously. 

“Noo...” Zevran said, since technically he hadn’t been looking through it, just at it. “It’s right there on the walls. Anyone could see it.”

“I suppose so. Well, yes. She drew them,” Ciara said. 

From then on, the rest of breakfast was spent with Zevran firing questions at Ciara and sometimes getting satisfactory answers, but mostly just getting one liners and clever deflections. Though he was skilled at interrogations, Ciara was equally skilled at secrecy. As he wasn’t particularly inclined to talk about his personal life either, neither of them really got much information out of the other. Nevertheless, he enjoyed bantering with her. And he did learn several small facts that she let slip. For instance, she had a male cousin named Soris. Zevran surmised that was the boring brown-haired man in the photographs along with Shianni and that other blonde-haired woman. But he couldn’t get the blonde woman’s name without admitting he’d been looking at the photographs. He also found out that he had been right and Ciara’s mother had died when she was young. In return for that information, he had to tell her that he had never known his real parents at all, but had been raised by a rather scatterbrained family friend with not a lot of money. What he failed to mention was that she was “scatterbrained” because she was constantly doing various kinds of drugs. Ciara did not have to know that. But Zevran was sure there were plenty of things she was failing to tell him about her life in return. 

After they finished eating, Ciara left all the mess on the table and went to retrieve Zevran’s clothing from the dryer. After he had dressed and deposited the robe on a chair in the kitchen, she showed him to the door. 

Just as he put his hand on the doorknob to leave, Ciara stopped him. 

“Zevran, there’s probably something you should know,” she said, not meeting his eyes for the first time that morning.

“Yes?”

Ciara took a deep breath and fidgeted for a moment. Zevran felt a sinking feeling in his stomach “I know about the bet.”

‘What?’

Completely startled, Zevran took a step back. “You... know?” he said, feeling suddenly, unreasonably, incredibly guilty. He had nearly forgotten about the bet himself. He hadn’t thought about it since last night, and for a brief moment this morning when she had mentioned Taliesen. 

“Yes,” Ciara said grimly, now folding her arms and raising her gaze to his. “I overheard you and Taliesen talking about it.”

“Then you -” Zevran began. None of this made any sense. “Why did you agree to this?”

A somewhat bitter, lopsided grin shot across Ciara’s face for a moment. “You’re attractive. Why shouldn’t I have agreed? Besides, I probably deserved the whole false-pretences thing.”

But even as she said that, Zevran thought that it was completely untrue. He had never made this kind of bet before, and now he somehow felt that it had been cruel. Betting that he could pick up an attractive person in a club who obviously _wanted_ to be picked up by somebody was one thing, but betting that he could sleep with someone that he had previously hated because he thought it would be “good for her” was... horrible, really. 

“I -” he began, not sure whether to apologise or if that would just make things worse. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Ciara said. She sighed. The knot between her eyes smoothed out and she said calmly, “Like I said, it was fun. Just... don’t tell anyone other than Taliesen. I wouldn’t want you to miss out on your 50$. Impress upon him not to talk about it too, if you can. But if word gets around about this, I don’t know. I could have you fired for insubordination or something.”

The threat was completely empty. Zevran looked past her and then dropped his gaze. 

“Thank you,” he said, opening the door. The words felt hollow. 

As he walked into the hallway and Ciara closed the door behind him he could have sworn he heard her mutter, “I’m lucky I was worth that much.”

Then the door clicked shut behind him, and he had what seemed like a very long drive home in front of him.


	2. The Truth

Over the weekend, Zevran gave serious thought to how he would tell Taliesen what had happened on Friday night. He had considered lying and just telling Taliesen that he had chickened out at the last minute. But Taliesen would undoubtedly try and convince him to try again, and explaining why he didn't want to would be hard. Just announcing that he had done the deed would be enough, he hoped. It felt wrong, now, to talk about the night he had spent with Ciara - because Taliesen wouldn’t understand. Taliesen hadn’t been there, so he would doubtlessly go on hating Ciara just as strongly as he had before, no matter what Zevran said. But Zevran didn’t hate Ciara anymore. How could he, now that he had seen that contrary to all expectations, she actually had feelings? 

And that she could be kind.

As usual, Taliesen arrived to work before Zevran on Monday. As soon as Zevran walked in, Taliesen started gesturing at him to come over, but Zevran pretended not to notice. Instead, he busied himself with arranging his desk and answering some emails as across the aisle Taliesen's impatience reached its critical limit. Just as Taliesen looked like he was getting ready to start throwing balled-up papers at Zevran's head (this had happened before), Zevran quietly and calmly rolled into his cubicle.

"You took your sweet time, you son of a bitch," Taliesen said, since both of them knew Zevran had been stalling. "Well? How was it? Terrible?"

"Terrible?" Zevran frowned. "Yes, I suppose it was. If you don't like the feisty kind."

"No way," Taliesen said, laughing and shaking his head. "You expect me to believe Tabs has a feisty side? No way. What do you take me for?"

"I'm serious. Look," Zevran said, pulling down his collar to reveal one of the hickies Ciara had left on his neck. It was fading, of course, but still stood out against his tan skin.

"You could've gotten that from anywhere," Taliesen scoffed. 

"Then please tell me why today she is wearing a turtleneck," Zevran said, flipping his collar back up and smoothing out the wrinkles. "I won this bet fair and square, Taliesen. Now pay up, or I may just refuse to tell you any more... interesting details." Not that he wanted to tell Taliesen any more details, but at least this was the start of an excuse.

"Oh come on," Taliesen said. "At least tell me what colour her bra was first."

"White with some blue lace-y stuff. And a little bow. Now pay up."

Sighing in mock defeat, Taliesen took a wad of money from his wallet and handed it to Zevran. Just as his fingers closed around the money, someone knocked on the outside of the cubicle behind them.

For one horrifying moment, Zevran thought that Ciara herself had come to interrupt this unsavory transaction. From the look of shock on Taliesen's face, Zevran knew he thought the same.

But when they both turned around and looked towards the door, it wasn't their boss standing there at all, but the woman who worked in the cubicle next to Taliesen. She was a silver-haired, fluffy-looking old bat named Wynne, and she wrote the paper's advice column. Zevran had always thought of her as spectacularly harmless, if a bit nosey, but right now she looked completely livid.

"You. You two complete and utter scoundrels. The nerve of you I cannot believe. How dare you? And right in front of us all, too. You should both be ashamed of yourselves." Her gaze fell on the money that was still in Zevran's hand, and he quickly shoved it into his pocket so it would be out of sight.

"She had it coming," Taliesen protested, and Zevran could have strangled him. In that moment, every fibre of his being regretted the decision to not just lie and tell Taliesen he hadn't gone. 

"Why, because she tries to make sure the two of you are doing the work you get paid for?" Wynne snapped, turning her angry glare on him instead. 

"She doesn't have to be such a frigid bitch about it," Taliesen retorted.

"No? And you don't have to be such an unsympathetic little shit either," Wynne said, jabbing an accusing finger towards him.

"Wait a minute," Zevran cut in. "Unsympathetic? What are you talking about?"

Rounding on him, Wynne said with exasperated anger, "Honestly, do either of you even read your own newspaper?"

The answer to that, for Zevran at least, was 'yes, occasionally, when my adoptive mother makes me.' But before he could reply with this weak protest, someone else came to stand behind Wynne in the doorway of the cubicle. Miracle upon miracle, the person there once again failed to be Ciara. Instead, it was the man who worked on the other side of Taliesen's cubicle, a giant albino named Sten, whose job Zevran coveted because he worked on the crime reports. 

"Wynne. Your voice is rising," Sten said. He spoke so rarely that just hearing his voice made Zevran feel uneasy. Even Wynne looked uncomfortable.

"These two infuriate me," she managed to say with dignity. "But I realise this is something that should be kept quiet. I'll be going back to work now." She turned her baleful glare on Zevran and Taliesen one last time. "But I don't want to hear anything more about this, understand?"

"Er," Zevran began, but Wynne was gone before he could finish his sentence. 

That left Sten looming in the doorway, Zevran feeling incredibly uncomfortable, and Taliesen fuming silently. After the three of them had been frozen like that for enough time for Taliesen to calm down and start squirming, Sten finally spoke again.

"No one wants to hear any more about this."

With that, he left. Zevran and Talisen exchanged glances, and then Zevran silently rolled away.

————

It was only after everyone was settled back into their respective workspaces that Ciara walked past Zevran's cubicle. She didn't stop, so Zevran wasn't sure if she was passing to check up on them, though she had surely heard the commotion. Once she was gone, he shoved the money Taliesen had given him into the back of a drawer without even counting it and tried to start working on an article. 

A little icon popped up in the corner of his computer screen: email from Taliesen. Before the icon faded, Zevran read the subject line: "you still owe me the goods". Without even reading the email, Zevran shot off a one-line reply with no subject: "im not telling you anything do you want us both to get fired" then closed his inbox and tried once again to work.

By mid-afternoon it became clear that working was even more futile than usual. Wynne's infuriatingly vague accusations kept echoing around his head, making concentration next to impossible. "Don't you even read your own newspaper?" 

How could reading the newspaper possibly explain why Ciara was so strict most of the time? Did everyone else in the office know that she wasn't always like that? Or did they just excuse it constantly because of some other obscure reason? Was this some kind of big office secret that Zevran just wasn't in on?

Zevran wanted so badly to know the truth, because he knew he wouldn't let himself have any peace until he did. He wanted to understand the woman who he saw everyday but had never known until he had slept with her. She had been the one holding all the cards all along, infuriating him, tantalising him, but ultimately allowing herself to be made vulnerable to him. He had never known another woman - or person - like her in his entire life. She was clearly braver than him, low as he now felt. The more he thought about it, the more he resolved to try and understand.

But there were several problems with this, the first being that it was unlikely he could get Wynne to drop him any more hints, not without wasting a lot of time and effort first. If he wanted to solve this mystery, he might actually have to read some of the articles in the newspaper. In fact, read a _lot_ of articles in the newspaper, because he had no idea what he was supposed to be looking for, nor how long ago it had occurred. This was a needle-in-a-haystack search for sure.

The second problem was even more vexing. Although Zevran was practically ready to turn the letter opener on himself in his frustration... there a chance it would be better not to know. Although he didn't understand why, the same uncomfortable force that had compelled him to throw Taliesen's money in the back of the drawer and refuse to reply to his emails was telling him not to even try. To just walk away and let Ciara go on being his bitchy, annoying, fondly detested boss who he had happened to have had a fun but unorthodox one night stand with. 

Zevran knew he should just walk away. But he couldn't.

—————-

It made no sense to start from the most recent articles, as Ciara had been like this since Zevran had arrived 6 months before. From what Taliesen had said in the past, Zevran gathered that she had been like this since he had gotten there, and Taliesen had been there for a full year. All the archives were digitized, so it was easy to look through them. The problem was, he couldn't just to a keyword search for her name because she wrote for the paper, so it appeared in every single edition. There were some sections which logically wouldn't contain anything useful, such as the comics section, for instance, but that still left a good chunk of each newspaper to read. In between half-hearted attempts to work on his assigned articles, Zevran started skimming all the papers dating from about a year ago. 

Naturally, he found nothing. But reading old newspapers on a most-likely-futile quest to figure out someone else's baffling behaviour was much more interesting than writing articles he didn't care about, so Zevran tried again the next day with slightly older papers. And again the next day, and again, and again. 

Two weeks passed, with Zevran spending his every free moment reading boring old newspapers. He was so absorbed with the task that he didn't go out on Friday, but stayed at the office late to go through more company files. Meanwhile, it seemed half the office was angry with him. Wynne glared at him every time she saw him, while Sten and some girl named Leliana who worked in the cubicle opposite Wynne wouldn't even talk to him - not that Sten had talked much in the first place. As for Taliesen, he was constantly pouting over Zevran's refusal to tell him anything interesting about Ciara's performance in bed, and Zevran was rapidly getting fed up with him. Zevran wasn't even sure himself why the requests for gossip were so grating, but... well, they were, and Zevran was hardly bothering to be polite about refusing them anymore.

In a completely unforeseen turn of events, Ciara was the only one not treating Zevran worse than usual. When they actually spoke in person, which was rarely, she seemed to be just as impenetrably uptight and matter-of-fact as before. But she no longer emerged from her office to chastise Zevran and Taliesen for being off-task. In fact, her behaviour was so comparatively non-offensive the whole office seemed to be a little lighter. 

_You can thank me for that,_ Zevran thought to himself. 

But truth be told, he had expected her to seem a bit more affected by the experience than she did. When he looked at her, it was hard not to imagine her in that blue dress - or in nothing at all. This usually sent him into a little circle of pleasant memories, which he was certainly not complaining about. But it was unfair that Ciara didn't seem to be similarly affected. 

Once Zevran had glanced over to her office and seen that she was looking right at him. When their eyes met, Ciara had jumped and whirled back around before Zevran could see her expression. But what that meant, he had no idea.

By the beginning of the third week, Zevran had given up on actually reading any articles, instead glancing at their titles and then moving on. Just as he was on the brink of giving up, he found it. A picture. 

About two years ago, a very familiar face had made its way onto the front page of the paper. But it wasn't Ciara. It was a grainy photo of a redheaded woman named Shianni. Shianni Tabris.

Suddenly it all came back to Zevran - why Shianni looked familiar, that is. The poor girl had been at the heart of a highly publicised rape trial. The facts of the case had never managed to filter into his consciousness, but he was almost certain that Shianni had been one of the victims. From the looks of things, two other women had also been raped. That is, there were two other pictures in the paper - and one of them looked suspiciously like that blonde woman who had also appeared in all of Ciara's photographs. The third woman, however, was no one he recognised.

Was this what Wynne had been referring to when she had told Zevran to "read his own newspaper"? It seemed that Shianni wasn't just Ciara's best friend, but her family. A highly publicised trial such as this case often caused a lot of stress for the participants, so if Ciara had been supporting Shianni during that time, it might have been enough to cause her to become more... hardened. But several things about this theory didn't sit right with Zevran. First, the trial had been almost three years ago. How could anyone maintain such a frigid demeanour for three full years was beyond Zevran. Second, it didn't explain her personality change at home. Why should she have dropped the act for him if she had really hardened her heart to the world like that? And thirdly, Ciara seemed... too strong for that. If she wanted to be friendly and accommodating, she could. Her current demeanour was something she was doing to herself, not something that had happened to her. Now that Zevran had met her other, and what he presumed was true, self, he was convinced of this. Besides, he had high school friends who were now in the adult entertainment business. He knew ham acting when he saw it.

There was one question left to consider. Had Ciara herself been a participant in the trial itself? As a witness, or, heaven forbid, a victim? It didn't seem likely but... there was no way to know until he read the article.

_FRIDAY The Arl Vaughn rape case concluded late yesterday afternoon, with sadly predictable results. In spite of the overwhelming evidence against him, Arl Vaughn was found Not Guilty after almost a full day of deliberation on the part of the jury. It is clear from the statement that this decision was due to the confusion in the testimony of Goldanna Theirin, who changed her statement several times over the course of the trial, reportedly upon the urgings of her lawyer._

_The other two witnesses, Valora Alderon and Shianni Tabris, both declined to comment. However, they later issued a joint statement declaring their commitment to the truth, and warning other women to beware of Mr. Vaughn. He and his lawyers also declined to speak with us, likely because they are aware of the negative public sentiment surrounding this case. Whether this is truly the end or if further developments will come to light remains to be seen._

The article went on to talk about rumours of other victims, the length of time required by the court proceedings, a review of the evidence, and an summary of the testimony of Goldanna Theirin as compared to that of the other two witnesses. In short, this Arl Vaughn character, a rich, frat-boy type just out of college, had practically kidnapped and then date-raped each woman. However, because of Goldanna Theirin's mysterious change in testimony, some differences in the stories of the other two women could not be explained. The article hinted that Goldanna Theirin may have been influenced by some kind of bribe.

The source for this hint was directly stated in the article. It was a quote unquote, "inside source". Zevran knew what that meant. Either someone who worked for the paper, or someone who was fucking someone who worked for the paper, had made that accusation. Now, who could that inside source possibly be?

Zevran allowed himself a moment to pretend he was thinking about it. But obviously, it was Ciara. She may even have gotten her job that way. 

So that was how she was involved in all this. A go-between for Shianni and the local paper. 

But there was more to it than that.

Now that he knew what to look for, Zevran scoured the archives for mentions of the Arl Vaughn murder case. Shianni appeared in several different photos, not just the simple headshots he had found in the first article. And in every photo of the trial itself, if Shianni appeared in a picture, Ciara was no farther then 3 feet away. 

Well. Clearly she had been involved. But what did it all mean? Zevran now knew what had happened, but he was no closer to understanding than he had been before. As it was getting late, he decided to just call it a day. But first, he saved all the articles he had pulled and took them home with him.

It took Zevran another two days to fully read every single article about the case. There were not many other details of note, except one: A full year after the conclusion of the trial, Arl Vaughn was found murdered in his home. That case had yet to be solved. On that subject, the "anonymous source" commented only that "many people feel that Arl Vaughn got was coming to him". Naturally, Ciara would be pleased that someone had snuffed the guy who had hurt her cousin. And her friend, the blonde one. Zevran was still not sure where blondie, Valora, fit into this picture. 

Now that he had all the pieces, he wanted to talk to Ciara about it. He had considered discussing his find with Taliesen, but only briefly - it was much better to just go straight to Ciara herself. The problem was... what should he say? "I heard your cousin was raped three years ago and her rapist got himself murdered last year, and I was wondering if that had anything to do with why you're such an ice queen at work?" "Hey, I'm sorry for reading two years' worth of newspaper articles just so I could figure out your split personality disorder, but BTW you're still a good kisser?" Of course, he didn't have to talk to her about it, but... he couldn't just quit now, after all this work. He wanted to understand. And... to say he was sorry. No matter how this trial fitted in with Ciara's current strange behaviour, Zevran had already resolved to apologise to her again. She deserved it.

Either way, they would have to talk.

—————

Zevran didn’t want to face talking with Ciara in person before the appointed time, in case something should accidentally come out, so he sent her a series of emails instead.

From: Zevran Arainai  
To: Ciara Tabris  
10:50 AM  
Ciara, I would like to speak with you about something personal. Is there a good time I could stop by?  
-Z

From: Ciara Tabris  
To: Zevran Arainai  
10:55 AM  
You know I don't do personal at the office. Is this coffeeshop-grade personal or something stronger?  
-Ciara

From: Zevran Arainai  
To: Ciara Tabris  
11:21 AM  
It is definitely too personal for coffeeshops. My apologies.  
-Z

From: Ciara Tabris  
To: Zevran Arainai  
11:26 AM  
Alright, fine. My place, this evening after work?  
-Ciara

From: Zevran Arainai  
To: Ciara Tabris  
11:59 AM  
That works for me. Thank you.  
-Z

From: Ciara Tabris  
To: Zevran Arainai  
12:04 PM  
Mmhmm. See you there.  
-Ciara

—————

That afternoon, both Ciara and Zevran drove to Ciara's apartment in separate cars. Once they had arrived, Zevran waited silently as Ciara held open the door for them and they shared a silent and very awkward elevator ride up to her floor. Finally she unlocked the front door, and he followed her into the living room. She did not sit down, but leaned against a bookshelf with her arms folded. Zevran, following suit with the not-using-chairs thing, leaned against the arm of the sofa.

"So, what did you want to talk to me about?" Ciara asked. 

Mentally steeling himself for the conversation ahead, Zevran began, "I would like to apologise."

Ciara tilted her head to the side in a gesture of curiosity, but didn't interrupt. 

"I shouldn't have slept with you under the circumstances that I did. It was wrong of me to do that," Zevran said. Ciara raised one eyebrow.

"Are you sure? Because I would say it was fair and square, considering how I was treating you at work," she said, sounding completely frank.

"Yes, but..." Zevran began. Hesitated. Said it. "I heard about Shianni."

Instantly, Ciara's face hardened and she drew herself up. "Oh, really? And from where, may I ask, did this information come?" she asked.

 _Oh, shit._ She was using her 'Zevran and Taliesen, this is the fifth time today I've told you to shut up, and if you don't do it this time you're both getting fired, so help me god' voice. Normally reserved only for extreme circumstances. A little strange to hear it in this setting, but no less intimidating.

"Wynne told me," Zevran said apologetically. He would have left it at that, but... he had come here in part to stop lying to Ciara. "And... I was curious, so..."

"So you looked it up?" Ciara supplied for him, voice still harsh. "Yes, and what does my past have to do with anything?"

Zevran thought that was an odd way to phrase it, given that it was technically Shianni's past. "It made me realise that I had misjudged you," he explained. Though he still felt that there was more to the story of Shianni's trial than what he had been able to find in the papers, he had found enough to know that Ciara and her family had undergone a terrible ordeal, and that was enough information for him. "I made that bet because I thought you were a bitch and you deserved it, but-"

Ciara cut in. "I _am_ a bitch," she said. "I do it on purpose. Bitches get things done and they make people listen to them. They have no friends, but that's the price they pay to shape the world the way they want it. Don't feel sorry for me and Shianni because of what happened. We're fine."

Zevran was about to reply when he paused. Something in what Ciara had just said was nagging at the corner of his mind. 'Bitches get things done and they make people listen to them.' As opposed to nice people like Shianni who can't convince a jury to convict a rapist? Maybe it was nothing.

Also, having no friends didn’t sound fine to him at all. "Really?" he asked.

"Well, yes. The guy who did it is gone now."

She sounded almost careless. The guy who did it is just gone. No mention of the fact that he was murdered. Zevran had the strangest feeling. As if he had just accidentally placed his finger over the pulse of the puzzle, and found a steady thump-thump-thump.

"Good. If I were you I would've hated him," Zevran said. 

"Oh, I did," said Ciara, her voice angry, but with a strange tinge of... triumph.

All of sudden, Zevran understood. Everything fit. But the idea was too wild, too ridiculous to even consider. He couldn't just...

The silence that settled over them then felt a little unreal. As if from slightly far away, he heard himself say, "Did you know something about his death?"

Instantly, both of them froze. Their eyes locked. Zevran expected Ciara to deny it, but they were five seconds past the point of plausible deniability, and she still hadn't spoken.

"I-" Ciara started. The shock of hearing her own voice break the silence stilled them both again. But this time, there was a wary light in Ciara's eyes, and an understanding in Zevran's.

"Does Shianni know?"

"There's nothing to know," Ciara snapped. Her voice betrayed her thoughts: she knew Zevran knew, so now she was cornered. "And if you're going to keep making accusations, you can get out of my house."

There was another moment of palpable tension in which Ciara tried to will Zevran to drop the subject by staring him down. 

_What the hell is going on?_ Zevran thought. Clearly, his flash of intuition had been right - Ciara _did_ know something about Vaughn's death. Was her ice queen act somehow a cover for her involvement in the murder? If Zevran were a _good_ reporter, or even a good person, probably, he would be pulling out a little tape recorder and trying to get a confession out of her. But what would be the point? The man was already dead, whereas Ciara was right here in front of him. It was this moment which would ultimately determine if he would ever be let into Ciara's life again, or if he was doomed to be locked out of it forever. Maybe that outcome shouldn't matter so much to him, but... it did. He wanted to know this lovely, dangerous, secretive, strong, beautiful woman, and he was teetering on the brink of losing her to the dark past from whence she had come.

Slowly, deliberately, looking straight into Ciara's eyes, Zevran said, "He had it coming."

Thrown off guard, Ciara hesitated again. "Of course he did," she said in a low voice. "And?"

"If I were you, I would have done it myself," Zevran said, completely honest. "With a knife, I think." A knife, because it gave more visceral satisfaction. Not that that was something to bring up at the moment. Just then, his eye fell upon the ornate knives that he had noticed above Ciara's bookshelf the first time he had visited. Could it be...?

Completely off guard now, Ciara took a step forward, raised one hand as if to reach out to him, then froze. In a completely uncertain tone she said, "Zevran?"

Hearing his name said like that, Zevran knew he'd won.

"My Ciara, you have nothing to fear from me." His eyes locked with hers again, but it was a much more gentle gaze this time, as if he was holding her with only his eyes. "I want only the truth."

Ciara bit her lip. Looked down at her hand, which was still raised, and slowly lowered it. Looked back up into Zevran's gentle, curious eyes. 

She shook her head.

"I can't."

Then she slowly lowered herself down onto the sofa and put her head in her hands. Zevran sat down next to her and said nothing for a moment.

Slowly, as if every word were a ponderous weight, Ciara spoke again. "Zevran... I like you, but I hardly know you, not really. Sure, I was _involved_ , but just reading the paper will prove that." Zevran knew that Ciara was talking about the murder and not the trial. She was admitting her guilt, but in an indirect way that couldn't be used to trap her. It was admirable, how quickly she was able to speak without giving herself away. She must have rehearsed for this eventuality - that someone would figure out her connection to the Arl Vaughn murder case ran deeper than it first appeared. "Shianni doesn't know anything, you got that? Don't involve her in this, whatever you do. That vile scum-" here Ciara's voice took on a tone of vicious anger "-he raped three women. Now he can't touch one ever again. Goldana should've been killed too, for taking his filthy money. But uh - _whoever_ did this was too nice." She snorted at her own comment, and Zevran saw the bitter irony of it. Sparing someone's life could hardly be considered "nice" when normally murder was considered a despicable crime. Not that Zevran thought of it that way, at least not in this circumstance.

Still speaking harshly but picking up speed now, Ciara continued. "So now you know."

As far as Zevran was concerned, Ciara has essentially just admitted that she had killed Arl Vaughn in cold blood. Not directly - no, she was being too cautious for that. But by also refusing to tell him her actual involvement, she was refusing to remove that possibility from the table. 

"A literal femme fatale. I like it," Zevran said, grinning. "If that is what all murderers are like in bed, I think we should encourage it. In fact, I would definitely be open to sleeping with a murderer again, provided it were the same one as last time," Zevran said, and Ciara looked up in shock.

"Zevran!"

"Yes?"

"Does this matter to you at all?"

After making a big show of thinking about it, Zevran said, "No." 

Ciara stared at him, seemingly unable to process what he had said.

"So you maybe killed some asshole who had it coming. I've known people killed for worse reasons. Even if you did it, it wouldn't bother me nearly as much as how you used to harass me and Taliesen. But I think you have stopped doing that now, so I suppose there is nothing more to complain about," Zevran said, and laughed. For a moment Ciara sat there open-mouthed, but then she, too, laughed, shakily. Breathlessly. 

"I was doing that because I didn't want anyone to find out," she said. "If I didn't have any friends, none of them could be considered accessories to the crime and get in trouble if they finally investigated me." 

"That is the worst idea I have ever heard," Zevran said. Then both of them laughed again, and Ciara laughed until she cried, tears of happy relief.

——————

The door to Ciara’s apartment clicked shut, but neither Ciara nor Zevran paid it any mind - they were both laughing over one of Zevran’s terrible one-liners. Briefly, as they entered the kitchen, Zevran wondered what new wonder this third visit to the apartment could bring - the first time it had been a personality revelation, the second time it had been a murder confession, and now here they were again. Probably nothing could top the murder confession. 

Dropping her purse on the table and her coat on a chair, Ciara went over to cabinet and opened it. Zevran, taking his cue from her, put his things on the table too. 

“Would you like something to drink?” Ciara asked. 

“No thanks,” Zevran replied, so she shut the cupboard and stood casually in front of the counter, leaning against it. 

“This was fun,” she said, but then, strangely, sighed. 

“What is it?” Zevran asked. 

“Oh, nothing. Just that you’re not supposed to date your coworkers,” she said wryly. “Or so they tell me. Looks like it’s going to happen anyway, though.”

Date? Him? Zevran wasn’t the kind of person who dated anyone. But then again... Ciara wasn’t the kind of person to take a chance on a self-absorbed skirt-chaser, but here they both were. 

“I try not to follow rules which were made by people who never get laid,” Zevran said, and Ciara laughed. 

It was then that a slightly awkward air settled over the kitchen. Ciara made eye contact with Zevran, then quickly looked away, flushing slightly. 

“So... is this the end of this date?” Zevran asked, because in his experience the direct approach usually yielded good results. 

“I... don’t want it to be,” Ciara said, not looking at him. 

Silently, Zevran tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear, and she leaned in to his touch. Zevran hesitated. She was giving him the cues, but she still looked uncertain. 

Sliding his hand gently under her chin, Zevran asked quietly, “What do you want?” 

“I want you to kiss me,” she said, and when she looked up for a moment, Zevran saw a spark glistening in her beautiful black eyes. He could have instantly responded with a kiss, but something stopped him. Instead, he lightly ran his fingers along her jawline and up to cup her cheek. Putting his other hand on her ribs, he stroked down the curve of her side to settle on her waist. Ciara put both of her hands on his waist and looked up into his eyes.

A brittle stillness fell over the room. The air prickled heavily with a silent tension, a liquid suspension as the clock tick-tick-tocked on-wards. Slowly, as if drawn by the weight of gravity itself, Ciara tilted her face upwards and Zevran tilted his down. Their lips met. 

Their kiss was slow and heavy, demanding but patient. Zevran took his time tasting Ciara’s lips, and she kissed him back, unhurried. 

Then their tongues touched, and Ciara gasped, a raw, involuntary sound of pleasure. A tight knot of heat began to form in the pit of Zevran’s stomach. Pushing his tongue into her mouth, he pressed up against her, wanting to feel the shape of her body outlined in stark, heated lines against his. He felt the fullness of her pressing against him, pressed back, held tightly to her hip and let his fingers stroke through her hair. Ciara seemed to feel the same, stroking her hands down his back and sides, tugging impatiently at the hem of his shirt. 

“Do it,” Zevran huffed out between kisses, and they broke apart for a moment so she could pull the shirt over his head. 

“I thought you’d never ask,” Ciara sighed, as Zevran’s hands found their way to the zipper on the back of her dress. He pulled the dress open and then slipped his hand gently inside. Now touching her bare skin, he shivered with hot pleasure as his fingers glided down the smooth planes of her back, the ridge of her spine. Ciara in turn pressed her hands to his back, his sides, his chest, his stomach, his ribs. 

His fingers grazed against the catch of her bra, and she stopped his hand.

“No?” he asked softly.

Ciara smiled with hooded eyes. “Bedroom.”

This time she led him to the bed. And even as Zevran began to slow-grind his hips against hers, as she finally let him unhook her bra, as they continued to kiss and kiss - even then, Zevran secretly knew then that he would follow her anywhere, now. To any bedroom in any house. To any wisdom, to any truth. To something that could almost be called love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the original title of this fic was "The Murderboss AU". I think it should be obvious why. The basic premise was this: What if the City Elf Warden tried to get away with killing the Arl of Denerim's son in the modern era, where you can't get conscripted to get out of murder charges? The answer is that she would hide in plain sight, at the very newspaper which reported her crime. Ciara is totally the kind of person who could murder someone and get away with it. In canon or in an AU. 
> 
> I hope the murder confession didn't come too far out of left field. This fic could stand to be at least 5K longer, but I kinda ran out of steam so this is as finished as it's going to get. You can tell because of the part that's just emails. That was me giving up, lol. If I had the time, I'd go back and add another section about Zevran's backstory. IDK if you've been picking up the little clues I've been leaving, but Zevran was raised by someone who did a lot of hard drugs, and narrowly avoided a life of crime himself. Then he got saved by a scholarship and by a single parental figure who actually gave a shit about him. 
> 
> If you liked this story, please comment!


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